Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Marriage of Kittie Kally

Long ago and far away—at least for me, that is—a widower in
Fort Wayne, Indiana, known as John Kelly Stevens took as his wife a young
Irish immigrant by the name of Catherine Kelly. The date was October 16, 1883,
and the place was Fort Wayne’s
downtown Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

In that era in which the appearance of a woman’s name in the
newspaper was considered proper in only such few instances as wedding
announcements, the Fort Wayne Daily
Sentinel made it brief and bland—well, except for the inescapable political
tinge with mention of the ward location—on that very day of their wedding:

This morning John K.
Stevens, a moulder in Bass' Foundry, was married at the Cathedral to Miss
Kittie Kelley, daughter of John Kelly, of the Sixth ward. A reception will be
held this evening at the residence of Mr. Stevens. A number of presents were
received by the happy couple.

Note the spelling variation in this excerpt. Consider it all
courtesy, not of this transcriber, but of the newspaper editor. Think nothing
of it. This is only the beginning.

In typical manner of the time, the marriage record of
John Kelly Stevens and his second wife was abused by all conceivable
misspellings. John Kelly, himself, had his name represented on the Allen County marriage license as John K. Stevans.
So it would come as no surprise that his young Irish immigrant bride would have
her name spelled there as Kittie Kallyand perhaps not even notice it—nor the
detail in the attached marriage certificate in which she inexplicably morphed
into Kate Kelly by a mere stroke of
the pen of her church’s assistant pastor.

Besides the advanced notice that we have our work cut out
for us—not only with the application of several spelling variations on both
sides of the Cathedral aisle, but with the usage of several different
nicknames, too—the unfortunate Catherine Kelly had a number of other
abnormalities in her life’s vital documents to confuse the chase. We’ll take a
look at these over the next few days, as we launch into the questions of who,
exactly, this Kelly family in Fort
Wayne was.

...and in this case, they weren't even the ones changing their own name!

Funny you mention this, Iggy. I'm in the middle of researching another family line right now, and was unaware of the fact that performers in that line had indeed done just that: change their name. While certainly not anywhere near as well-known as Irving Berlin, these musicians had also found it in their best interest to streamline the appearance of their surname.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.